


So Well-Behaved

by neuronary



Series: Azula Week 2020 [5]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Straitjackets Are Torture Devices!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25210249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neuronary/pseuds/neuronary
Summary: “Let… let her out.”“I’m sorry?”“Let her go, let her move her arms. Take that… that thing off of her.”“I’m afraid we can’t, my Lady. It would be dangerous.”“I said take it off!”---Ty Lee visits Mai and Azula after the war.
Relationships: Azula & Ty Lee (Avatar), Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Mai & Ty Lee (Avatar), Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Series: Azula Week 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803277
Comments: 15
Kudos: 286





	So Well-Behaved

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So fun fact: straitjackets are commonly misconceived as methods of restraint when in fact they are legally classified as torture devices in many countries.
> 
> So, back to your regularly scheduled angst.
> 
> ~Neu

Ty Lee has to remind herself, sometimes, that a smile is just a smile on Kyoshi.

It seems like Suki spends half her nights talking Ty Lee down from her overthinking about why so-and-so had smiled at her in such a way at the market, but she doesn’t seem to mind. So.

That’s good.

After a few months with the Kyoshi warriors, eternally expressive and honest, she struggles to read Mai. It takes a few days before she remembers all the tiny details she has to keep track of in her homeland.

Mai’s eye’s flicker half-shut where Suki would smile. She raises one eyebrow where Suki would laugh loudly and free. She does not smile, soft and warm and trusting, but she turns her head so that her neck and cheek are vulnerable, and it means the same thing. Her dark hair has changed, shorter and styled differently.

“I like it,” Ty Lee says on her second week in the Caldera. “It suits you.”

Mai doesn’t smile, but her eyes widen ever-so-slightly. “Thanks. It’s nothing big.”

(It is. Her mother would probably die of shock if she could see it.)

(Ty Lee doesn’t mention that.)

“Have you thought about…” Ty Lee doesn’t finish the question, because she knows the answer.

“I can’t,” Mai says, eventually. “We shouldn’t. It’s… it would be cruel. We wouldn’t be flaunting anything, but she’d… it would still hurt her.”

Neither of them want to hurt her, but Ty Lee goes anyway.

Azula smiles at her as she comes in. Her arms are tied around her and tightly secured. Ty Lee’s stomach rolls at the sight.

“Let… let her out.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Let her go, let her move her arms. Take that… that thing off of her.”

“I’m afraid we can’t, my Lady. It would be dangerous.”

“I said take it off!”

Azula’s smile hasn’t faltered, though she probably can’t hear them. It’s some odd version of her court smile, with too many teeth and no focus behind her eyes. A mask, only there to scare people away.

Ty Lee refuses to let it work.

Her face finally falls when they begin to unlock her restraints, just by a fragment, before it smooths over once again.

“Have I been so well-behaved?” It’s half sneered, and Ty Lee puts her own mask on so she doesn’t cry. She wants to find Zuko and shout him into letting Azula go, demand he explain how he can treat her like this and build her a physical manifestation of Ozai’s treatment. She wants, truth be told, to punch someone as hard as she can in the face, but she feels like that most of the time, and she never does.

Finally, Azula’s arms fall free and Ty Lee nearly flinches at the way they uncurl, frail and trembling. Azula makes no reaction.

“How long?” She forces out.

Azula stares at her, face smoothly neutral, mask slightly bored. Ty Lee sighs and turns to one of the nurses.

“A week,” she admits, nervous. It’s all Ty Lee can do not to explode at her.

“Leave us alone, please.”

She has to repeat it several times before the last security guards file out. At last, she turns back to her… she doesn’t know what to call Azula, she never has. Azula has never had a term, she’s always been simply  _ hers _ .

“You’ve come to gloat,” is all she says, face still unmoving and blank. She looks almost like Mai; it’s certainly Mai’s technique, shutting every part of herself away until all that’s left is an animated doll.

“Azula, I…”

Ty Lee doesn’t know how to explain the things she’d done. She probably never would. Instead she steps forward and reaches for Azula’s arms. She can’t move them away fast enough, Ty Lee’s fingers brush against them, and she lets out a stifled cry of pain.

“I’m sorry,” Ty Lee says, immediately. There are tears, reactive tears of pain, in Azula eyes. Ty Lee looks away. When she looks back, they are gone. “I’m sorry,” she says, again, because she is. “They shouldn’t be keeping you like this. I’ll talk to Zuko.”

Azula scoffs, and her face warps into a cynical scowl.

“I’ll challenge him to an Agni Kai if I have to,” Ty Lee swears. “This is  _ wrong _ , Azula.” She reaches out again, slow and careful this time, and Azula lets her press gently into her thin forearms. Ty Lee remembers them to be strong and solid - remembers the time that she, Azula, and Mai knew every inch of each other - but now they’re skinny and weak. She rubs as much blood flow as she dares back into them, and steers carefully clear of her elbows. She doesn’t need to look over them to know they’ll be swollen and impossibly stiff.

_ A week. _

She looks back up into Azula’s face and smiles, as gentle and reassuring as she can make it.

For a moment, Azula smiles back, the kind that reaches her eyes, sad and grateful and reaching and so very  _ Azula _ , when she’s not at the mercy of her titles. Then it widens a fraction, shows a few extra teeth, snaps up any emotion that Ty Lee might have found.

“Thank you so much for dropping by,” Azula sneers. “You can go now.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can come find me on [tumblr](https://neuronary.tumblr.com) if you want to yell at me about avatar or my fics.
> 
> I'm also a beta reader and I'm currently taking on new fics. If you want me to beta your writing you can hit me up on [ff.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/beta/12983219/neuronary), DM me on tumblr, or message me on Discord (neuronary #7964).
> 
> And, to top everything off, I have an avatar discord server [memebenders](https://discord.gg/zrd3ryM), where we debate important topics such as 'did wan shi tong and koh have a messy break up?' and 'did sokka eat the rose in the southern raiders or did he just drop it?'


End file.
